Welcome to my randomized study & miscellaneous thoughts about the Awesome God of the universe, who He is and what He wants us to be.

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Verse of the Day

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Today's Quote

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Do You Wanna Die

From a message delivered by Mike Junge & Dr. Larry Fulton at Pure Heart Christian Fellowship, Phoenix, AZ at 11:15 on August 1, 2004.

I am sure there are a few people in this room who at some point in their lives have felt that are ready to die – even looking forward to it. Let me explain. Not in the pain associated with dying, but in the new life with Christ in heaven or in an escape from this life. I mean, maybe you are getting older, are feeling worn out, maybe you are depressed, wanting or wishing for something better or just different….

Others here still have dreams to dream, plans to fulfill, are young, have a family, want to watch your children grow up, want to have some children. Maybe you don’t have time to die because you are too busy.

Have you ever had a day or month you just hoped someone would put a fork in you and get it over with? Let me tell you about July.

The month started out great. Summer vacation plans. Good friends and good times. Good Times. It all began in a neurologist’s office. We found out early in July that one of our girls needed an EEG in order to rule-out seizures and night-terrors.

One day before we were to leave on our vacation Laurie begins puking all over the place at around 9pm. I bring her to the hospital at 11:00 pm and she is admitted around 12am. We both figured that it was probably something mild like food poisoning or something. My wife wanted me to get the girls and get a head start on the vacation. So, the girls and I got on the plane the next day and flew to MN. I get off the plane and Laurie’s dad tells us that she may have a ruptured appendix. Great. I am in MN while my wife is in the hospital Arizona. What a loser I am! The good news is that that she was able to fly to MN four days later. No ruptured Appendix, thank God!

However, the neurologist calls Laurie a few hours before her flight and tells her that our daughter’s EEG results were abnormal on the right side of her brain and that she needs to have an MRI in order to rule-out a mass or brain tumor. The good news is that the results were normal. No tumor or mass. Praise God!

So, my parents are visiting from South Dakota a few days later and on the way back from a restaurant my daughter inhales a dinner candy and begins choking on it. It gets stuck in her throat and I drive 100 Mph to the emergency room where she pukes the candy out in my lap. Praise God, she is still alive.

The next morning we wake up and the power is off. Another transformer fire. My parents drive back to SD after 2 hours. The good news is the power did come back on an hour after they left.

To top it off we bought a puppy. She even sits when you command her to sit. The bad news is that she still poops everywhere but outside. Praise God it’s August.

I know that through these struggles our relationship with Christ has grown stronger. Jesus calmed the storm.

Anyway, open a Bible if you have one with you today and let’s read Romans 6:3 or follow along on the video screen.

“Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?”

Paul is reminding those who believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord to “know” that you are “baptized into His death.” But what does it mean to know this?

Let’s suppose a man has an incredible amount of credit card debt and has no way of paying his bills. But then something takes place that potentially changes his life forever. His uncle dies, leaving a sizeable fortune to him. Legally, the man is now rich. And even if the man never knows what has been left to him, the inheritance still belongs to Him - but it is not going to do him any good, because he doesn’t know about it.

Many of us are like that. We believe in the fact that Jesus died for us, but we have never fully realized all that was accomplished for us on the Cross. We have an inheritance – just like that man had - it belongs to us and potentially can change our lives forever - but we haven’t claimed the inheritance because some of us don’t know about it. Now, the fact is, the “knowing” that Paul is speaking of in Romans 6:1-10 is actually far deeper than just being informed of the facts. The “knowing” of Romans 6 includes acting upon that knowledge.

So let’s dig a little deeper and read Romans 6:6.

This verse says:

“knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we should not serve sin.”

Knowing this…notice the word “know” again. Knowing what? That the old man is crucified…So who is the “old man” that was crucified?

Have you ever watched two children in a room with one toy? The other day I was watching Josh and Luke playing with a pink Barbie scooter. Oops, I mean my kids; Josey and Amelia were playing with the scooter. I guess I am just so used to hearing Pastor Dan speak about his kids. Anyway, it didn’t take long before they were fighting for it. And this is not an isolated incident that happens just to my kids. Take any two kids and place them into a room with only one toy. Sooner or later the selfishness comes out. Children are not taught to be selfish. They don’t need to be taught. They just are. It is human nature. Those children are selfish just like we are.

All that you were in Adam - all the traits we inherited as a member of his race - what Paul called our “old man” -died in Christ.

Let’s take a closer look at the way Paul phrases this truth. In 6:2, he writes:

“…We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”

I want us to notice the tense that Paul uses. It is very important. He is not saying we need to die to sin. He is not encouraging us to try to die to sin. He is stating an accomplished fact - we have already died to sin! 2000 years ago, on the Cross of Calvary, I died to sin, done, completed, once and for all time. Now Paul says, because we have already died to sin, how can we continue to live in it any longer?

This remarkable statement by Paul should change forever the way we view our lives as Christians. As one Bible Commentary explains:

“Death to sin is not something hoped for by the believer; it is something that has already taken place. It is a simple fact basic to the living of the Christian life.”

I do not see Paul leaving any room for doubt as to the power of the Cross in the Christian life. He explains quite simply, “We died to sin.”

Suppose a member of a family recently died and he had been an alcoholic. All his life, alcohol had been a huge problem for him, and his family encouraged his drinking by encouraging him to drink. But now he is dead. His family visits the grave and one of his brothers has brought a bottle of alcohol with him. “Come on, Jack”, he says, holding the bottle out over the grave. “Have a drink for old time’s sake.” But there is no response from Jack because he is now dead to alcohol.

This is an example of the nature of the victory won for us on the Cross! In Christ we died as a member of Adam’s race and in that death the power sin had over us was broken.

I am sure some of you are thinking. Ok, this sounds good. But how does this become my experience on a daily basis? How does the truth on Romans 6:6 become a truth rather than a theory?

In my own personal life one of my greatest frustrations and heartaches in my walk with Christ is the slowness of my change. I hear the summons of God to love him with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. But do I ever rise to this standard? I struggle with this on a daily basis and like Paul I cry out “What a wretched man that I am!”

In the past, I was quite envious of people who were miraculously freed from habitual sins once they accepted Christ. This was primarily due to the fact that I did not believe that I was immediately freed from any of my sins. I continued then and continue now to be tempted by some of them on a daily basis.

When we continue to sin even after trusting in Jesus it results in many of us having a ceaseless struggle with much time and energy spent trying to fix up the problems we have within ourselves. We continue to struggle with the idea that we cannot stop the rottenness, decay and corruption of sin. After all, we cannot heal ourselves.

But what I have found is that the simple secret to having Christ’s work become a daily reality in our own lives is a conscious act of willing ourselves to God and yielding ourselves to God. When we are self-focused we are always biased towards sin. But when we realign our heart and lifestyle toward God, by actively offering our lives to Him, we experience the power of the Cross working in our lives and we can overcome sin.

I believe that one of the greatest sources of joy and endurance for the Christian is knowing that in the imperfection of our progress we have already been perfected—and this is because of the suffering and death of Christ.

Hebrews 10:14 says,

“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

This is amazing when you catch this. Let me read that verse again. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” In the same sentence Paul says we are “being sanctified” and are already “perfected.”

Being sanctified means that we are not perfect and in process. We are becoming holy—but are not yet fully holy. The joyful encouragement here is that the evidence of our perfection before God is not our experienced perfection, but out experienced progress. The good news is that the being on the way is proof that we have arrived.

The basis of all of this is found in 1 Corinthians 5:7 “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” The suffering of Christ secures our perfection so firmly that it is already now a reality. Therefore, we fight against our sin not simply to become perfect, but because we are.

The Cross does not make it impossible for a Christian to sin. It makes it possible for us not to!

We can either choose to live the way Christ modeled and taught for us empowered by the Holy Spirit or we can live the way our enemy wants us to live….

The question remains…..Do you wanna die?

Now wait a second…I thought I was going to get a cool video before I started like Mike had. I had requested a video clip of Sponge Bob Square Pants dancing to “I’m Too Sexy” but it appears that I was denied. So sad.

Earlier, Mike pointed us to Romans 6:3 and 6:6 and reminded us, that knowing something and acting upon it are two completely different things. The knowledge of what Christ’s death achieved should lead to a change in our beliefs. The change in our beliefs should lead to a change in our actions. The Message translation of verse 6 says, “Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the Cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life--no longer at sin's every beck and call!”

Up to now, everything Paul has written has been about what God has done for us but in Romans 6, verse 11 we are asked to do something.

Can you hear it?

“…count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11 NIV)

Do any of you ever watch old western movies or TV shows? As a kid, my hero was the Lone Ranger and as a teenager, I watched re-runs of the Rifleman. My wife is a John Wayne addict. I believe it’s a condition that she caught from her dad and she’s doing her best to pass it down to my son. Anyway, something about westerns that we like is that you can almost always tell the good guys from the bad guys. The good guys are usually the ones with the little metal badge on that says Sheriff or Marshal and they wear a white hat. The villains on the other hand dress in black. They have beady little eyes and long handlebar mustaches. The good guys are named Roy or Tex while the bad guys are called Lefty or Two-fingered Joe. In the typical western movie, the bad guy would rob a bank or stagecoach or shoot someone and then slink out of town and try to make a run for the Mexican border. The good guys would round up a posse of law abiding, more or less straight shooting men and try to hunt them down. Along the way, the posse would post signs telling everyone that they were offering a reward for the capture of the desperados…you’ve all seen these posters haven’t you? They would normally say that the bad guy was Wanted: Dead OR Alive. Dead or alive. They didn’t really care which condition the bad guy was in as long as you could prove that he was captured. Throw him in jail or in a coffin. Case closed.

God, the ultimate good Guy, also has a wanted poster of sorts. We can see it in words of Romans 6:11, “…consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God.” So, while Sheriff Wyatt Earp would take you dead or alive, God wants you to be dead AND alive. Mike asked earlier, “Do you want to die?” Many of us are hesitant to answer that question; and thinking in terms of our natural body, we only see two options. We can be alive or we can be dead. But looking again at what God says throughout these verses, we see that Romans is a “wanted poster.” It is an advertisement from God to capture not criminals, but Christians who are ready and willing to live out the moral standards of life in Christ. The Savior wants us dead and alive. He wants us to be willing to die so that we can be more alive than is ever humanly possible.

But how can this be? Life is the opposite of death. Things live and then they die. Death is the final conclusion. Dead and alive is an illogical statement; it’s an oxymoron like “jumbo shrimp.” Dead and alive? That’s two contradictory ideas trying to occupy the same space. But God is asking us not for a literal, physical death here but instead for us to be dead to sin and to our own selfish desires but alive to God, available to Him for doing His will to fulfill the purposes that He has for our lives. Simply put, He is asking us to follow Him.

So, let’s say that you’ve died to yourself. The question that naturally follows is, “How do we keep the dead, old self dead and buried at the same time we are living for Jesus?”

When you feel temptation in your body or your mind, then there are three things you are to do: First,

Know who you are in Christ.

Understand that the first step of obedience is to see ourselves in light of what the Bible says about us. But recall that “knowledge” alone is useless unless it leads to action. So the

second thing is to,

Remember that you don't have to obey sin.

You just don't have to. You are free to refuse it. You are free to say, "No, you don't have the right to use that part of my body for a sinful purpose." This step says to stop offering your body to sin. Or as Paul writes in the first half of verse 13, “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness.” Now, that may mean a struggle, because the strength of sin is very strong. When we start to turn away from evil in our bodies, the habits of our lives are so deeply engrained that oftentimes it is very difficult, and we struggle. But we continue to press on

And then, take the third step to

Remember that God’s power is in you…

to enable you to offer that same part of your body to Him, to be used for His purposes. The second half of verse 13 says to, “offer yourselves to God, as those who have returned from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness.” We have the power not to sin because we have God Himself within us - the living, all-powerful God.

Just to be clear, when this verse says to offer the parts of your body, that includes your tongue, your mind, your stomach, your hands, your feet, your sex organs, everything -- offer them all to God. Through a conscious decision on your part, yield control of them to God for His purposes. And then, do not place your body in situations where the sinful temptations of the old habits can overcome you. Instead, place yourself in places and with people that can help your grow closer to God and more like Jesus.

Paul says that after we have been buried with Christ by baptism into His death, we are dead to Sin. Now, I want to be crystal clear on a point. To be dead to Sin does not mean that we never again transgress. It should, however, mean that we will not be dominated by sin. As long as we are in the flesh, we are prone to making mistakes— mistakes for which we can sincerely seek forgiveness. However, once we have been baptized into Christ, sin no longer should have dominion over us.

As we grow in our relationship with Christ, stumbling blocks after a while should start becoming stepping-stones for us to move up in Christ. But in order for this to happen, we must be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. As Paul says in verse 4, when we are alive to God in Christ, we will walk in the newness of life. When we are dead and alive, there ought to be newness about us. When we are dead and alive, transformations are bound to occur. When we are dead and alive, we are ever reminded that the chief goal of the Holy Spirit is not excitement but transformation. When we are dead and alive, something on the inside starts working on the outside, and there will be a change in our lives.

We’ve asked what many of you may think is a rhetorical question, “Do you want to die?” But it’s not rhetorical now. The wanted poster is clearly up on the wall for everyone to see and it has your picture on it. God is seeking you today; He is waiting for you to turn yourself in. Are you willing to take your pain, take your past, take your problems, to take all your junk and give it to God today? Are you ready to die to yourself, your own selfish desires and plans and become truly alive? Today you can open up your life to discover the amazing purposes and desires that God created you for.

Some of you are here this morning thinking, “Well, I understand all that but I’m not there yet. I don’t know Jesus. How do I do it?” So, if you’re living completely for yourself still, you haven’t asked Jesus to come into your life and forgive your sins, God made it totally easy. He offered His love to us as a gift for us to accept or reject. The Bible says we must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, He was born here, died to pay for our sins and will forgive us if we ask. If you are ready and willing to accept His gift of love and take His guidance over your self-control, repeat the following prayer silently:

“God, thank you for loving me as I am – faults and all – and for sending Your Son Jesus to die in order to pay the price that I cannot. Today, right now, I want to lay down my self-desires and self-control and begin to live for the purposes that You have for me. Jesus, forgive me of my sins and come into my life to be my Savior and Lord. Amen.”

If you just did that, you’re starting a wonderful journey of growing in a real relationship with Jesus. Make sure to stop by the Information Table out front before you leave today to pick up a gift we have for you and welcome to God’s family!!!

Others of you already have Jesus as friend and Savior but maybe you’re not satisfied with the relationship. Is your relationship with God as deep as an ocean or does it resemble a puddle? Do you still have a nagging battle of control going on inside, old habits that die-hard and this morning you’re desiring to turn completely to God? If that’s you and you want to give up that self-control, to die to self here today, let’s ask God together to do it.

“Father God, I thank you for the love, grace and mercy You have for me. I give you praise for Your Son Jesus who is already my Savior. My desire is to get out of the way, to relinquish control of my life to You. Please Holy Spirit, turn me away from my selfishness and to a life for You. It’s only by Your power God that this can happen and I pray that begins now. Amen.”

Mike and I pray that as you leave here today and go about your living, when someone asks you how your weekend was, what you did, you’ll be able to respond that it was fantastic. That you went to a funeral and birthday at the same time!

scribbled with crayon by dr. larry at 12:12 AM